


the sour is in the cut

by middlecyclone



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Demon Shane Madej, Gen, Gratuitous Arrested Development References, Insects, mentioned animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 15:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14917982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlecyclone/pseuds/middlecyclone
Summary: Ryan had imagined that finding out that one of his close friends and coworkers had been a demon this entire time would throw a wrench into their relationship, but honestly it’s been more of a bonding experience than anything else.





	the sour is in the cut

**Author's Note:**

> This is very, very, very stupid.

You would imagine that finding out that one of your close friends and coworkers is a demon would throw a wrench into your relationship, but honestly it’s been more of a bonding experience than anything else.

Sometimes, these things just happen. One day you’re co-producing a viral internet series about ghost hunting, and the next you walk into the Buzzfeed men’s bathroom to discover one of your friends on fire and eating the head of a live chicken.

Life is a rich tapestry.

 

* * *

 

So the chicken had been gross, but overall Ryan thinks that sharing Shane’s big demonic secret has really brought them together.

Sure, at first he’d screamed and cried and tried to pray over a urinal to make his own emergency holy water, but Ryan feels like he’s been taking the news with relative grace and aplomb. Their on-camera chemistry hasn’t been affected at all, and understanding why Shane was so bizarre in so many ways has really helped their off-camera friendship deepen. And really, it does explain so much about the way Shane is. The height, the loose grasp of social norms, the complete and utter lack of fear of any kind, the faint scent of brimstone… it all adds up.

And now that the cat is out of the bag, Shane has been using his demonic powers to help Ryan make better Unsolved videos, and that’s the best part of all.

“Don’t bother with the Columbus house,” Shane had told him, “there’s nobody there but some bats and a minor poltergeist. Try and book Toledo; that’s where everyone is.”

“Toledo?” Ryan had asked. “Really?”

“Why do you think it’s so terrible? The weather? Post-industrial economic decline? Nah, man. It’s demons. It’s always demons.”

And so they went to Toledo.

 

* * *

 

The house they’re here to investigate is old, Victorian, and slightly decrepit, as per usual. There’s less mildew than usual, but more cobwebs, so Ryan figures it’s all about the same.

The foyer is dim, dusty, and deserted. The living room is more of the same. But there’s something even eerier than the usual about the hallway; the shadows don’t quite fall where they seem like they should, and there’s an odd chill in the air.

“Do you feel that?” Ryan asks, voice shaking.

“Nope,” Shane says brightly for the cameras, but he winks at Ryan when the GoPro is facing away from him and Ryan knows he feels it too.

The kitchen is grimmer still. Someone at some point has punched a hole in the wall, and the tacky wooden panelling is splintered, with some shards sticking almost a foot out into the room. Ryan steps in to take a closer look and somehow snags his rosary on one of the longer splinters.

“Ah, shit,” Ryan says, as the cord of his rosary snaps and wooden beads go bouncing all across the battered kitchen linoleum. “Shane, help me pick up these beads.”

“Bees?!” Shane says, shocked and delighted.

“Beads,” Ryan says, enunciating the final consonant, “beads.”

“Oh,” Shane says, disappointed. “I love bees. They’re so delightfully crunchy. Like popcorn with a kick!”

“Disgusting,” Ryan says, scrabbling across the floor, and when his hands brush a cloven hoof he barely even notices.

Well, no, he screams so loud he suspects they can all hear it back in California, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“Hey, brother,” says the demon, chipper as anything.

“Damn,” Shane says, face in his hands. “Hi, Baphomet.”

Ryan blinks. “You have a _brother_?”

“Technically all demons are brothers and sisters under our Father Satan,” Shane mutters into his fingers.

“I like to think that Shane and I always had an especially close bond, though,” Baphomet says lightly. “We share a love of fire and torture and pitchforks.”

Shane’s face is _still_ buried in his hands. “We’re demons, Baphomet. We all love fire and torture and pitchforks.”

“Oh,” Baphomet says, disappointed. “Good point.”

“Hey, so, do you want to help us out?” Ryan asks, steeling himself. He’s still pretty terrified of demons overall, but knowing Shane is right behind him is giving him courage he’d never thought he’d find.

“How?” Baphomet asks.

“Oh, you know, just some light haunting,” Ryan says. “Slamming doors, mysterious footsteps, maybe an apparition that could also be a shadow. Standard enough stuff.”

“Enough for some YouTube hits but not enough to get us actually in trouble with Dad,” Shane says. “Gotta keep up the masquerade and all that.”

Baphomet chuckles. “Don’t I know it! Sure, why not. I’ll pitch in.”

Why not, indeed.

 

* * *

 

 

Having help from a demon is _weird_.

They end up upstairs, in a bedroom filled with two four-poster beds and a tarnished full-length mirror. Shane has some great ideas for shots that feature impossible yet tastefully blurred reflections in the mirror, and Baphomet has already had a great time making quiet but horrible shrieks from downstairs.

Ryan’s not much of an actor, and he’d been worried that he wouldn’t be able to convincingly fake terror for the cameras, knowing that it’s all artificial. But it turns out that the noises the demon has been making are chilling enough on their own to send genuine shivers up his spine, and he trusts Shane to protect him but he doesn’t necessarily trust Baphomet to not force him to need protection. All things said and done, he’s not exactly having to fake any nervous sweating.

He’s got Baphomet perfectly half-framed in the mirror, but Shane is driving him crazy. Bored by the slowness of their filming, he’s resorted to creating miniature dancing holographic bananas and floating them around his head, but every so often they’ll float into frame and ruin a shot.

“I don’t have time for your stupid tricks, Shane,” Ryan snaps, fiddling with the white balance on the video camera, trying to include Baphomet’s horned shadow without actually including Baphomet.

“Illusions, Ryan! You don’t have time for my illusions!”

“What?”

Baphomet folds its arms over its chest and stares at them askance. “Are you guys … like … okay? Do you want me to come back later? Because I can come back later.”

“Yes!” Shane snaps.

“No!” Ryan snaps at exactly the same time.

“I’m … gonna leave now,” Baphomet says, and in a billowing plume of acrid yellow smoke, he’s gone.

“Oh, come on!” Shane says, exasperated. “We almost had it!”

“It’s okay,” Ryan says, “you can just make some floorboards creak and make the spirit box say ‘kill’ and it’ll still be the best evidence we’ve ever had.”

Shane sighs. “Yeah, true.”

“Hey,” Shane says, “nobody is going to make a fool of our YouTube series without my help.”

 

* * *

 

They upload the video on Friday afternoon, on schedule for once, and everything is going perfectly. They’re watching the hits and comments rise before heading out relatively early for happy hour drinks, and then Ryan sees it.

The comment.

“OMG OMG OMG check 12:51,” it reads, and there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he scrubs through the video.

“Shane,” Ryan says slowly, “I think we have a problem.”

“What is it?”

Shane leans over Ryan’s shoulder and he points at his screen. Somehow, unnoticed by either of them, a tiny floating banana has slipped into the very corner of one shot

“Oh, fuck,” Shane says, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not proud of this one.


End file.
